


Ghosts

by Toastybluetwo



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-10-04
Updated: 2012-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-24 07:53:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/260887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toastybluetwo/pseuds/Toastybluetwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kirkwall had always been a city of ghosts. Since the destruction of the Chantry, however, the problem had grown substantially worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

In the year 9:38 Dragon, war broke between Orlais and Ferelden, Kirkwall saw its first snowfall in over two centuries, and the White Divine decided not to declare an Exalted March on Kirkwall.

“She’s coming to make an official visit.” Sebastian extended the letter that he held in the direction of the Viscountess of Kirkwall. “She’ll be here in the spring. Can you believe it?”

“I still can’t believe that you were able to convince her not to declare an Exalted March.” Esperanza Hawke accepted the letter and began to read it quickly, her hazel eyes darting back and forth as she did so. “Not to sound cliché, but you’re a miracle worker.”

Sebastian chuckled, bowing his head for a moment. “It wasn’t just me. The prayers of Kirkwall’s citizens reached the ears of the Maker. I would imagine that your letter might have done something to do with it, as well.”

“I’m an amateur, and you’re being modest, but I believe that’s part and parcel of the whole Chantry Brother business.” Esperanza smiled at him, allowing herself a moment to look away from her letter and at Sebastian.

He had visited her often over the past year - during her transition into the position of Viscountess and the very slow process of rebuilding Kirkwall. Only recently had he, at last, laid aside his ornate armor and tunic and, finally, had assumed the weeds of a Chantry brother. Granted, the red and black robes of the Kirkwall Chantry were far more ornate than those worn in Ferelden, but it was somewhat refreshing and surprising to see Sebastian take the final step to completely divorce himself from his previous life.

“I’m afraid that I can never confirm or deny that.” Sebastian smiled back as he spoke, squinting slightly as he did so. “So tell me, how has Fenris been? It’s been a few weeks since I’ve seen him in the Chantry.”

“Busy.” Folding up the letter very carefully, Esperanza handed the letter back to Sebastian. “He’s been in charge of the building reconstruction. The nobles in Hightown have mostly been resistant to the changes, but we see no reason to replace the Tevinter architecture with more Tevinter architecture. Kirkwall is free now. We’d rather see less oppressive city walls and more open space.” She waved one hand, her wrist circling as her fingers nimbly danced in the air. “Leto sees it as a celebration of Kirkwall and what it can offer Thedas as a whole.”

“I see that he’s decided to return to using his birth name.” Sebastian rested his gloved hands on the back of one of the study’s plush chairs. “What brought this about?”

Esperanza sat in the large, overly ornate chair that had once belonged to Dumar and was now hers. As if his ghost meant to nudge her on the shoulder, she wondered if he had ever had personal discussions with friends while occupying this study. Did he have any true friends?

“A few weeks before the wedding, he suggested that he might take my name when we married. You remember that.” Esperanza gave Sebastian a single nod. She knew that he would recall it easily. It had been the high point of gossip among the nobles of the city-states since then. “He said that he had been thinking about his own name. His former master gave him the name of Fenris. Even though it was a symbol of his new life, it was still one more wound that Denarius had given him. He wanted to find and embrace the man that he could be, he said.”

She could still smell the Rivaini coffee that she and Fenris were drinking during the course of the discussion. The paper beneath Fenris’ right elbow crinkled as he sat up straighter, deliberately meeting her gaze. His lips tightened as he took her hand, and in this single moment, the air stilled and became almost unbreathable. There was something in his face that she did not like, something that was apparently difficult for him to say, and her stomach ached to hear it, even as her nerves braced for an incoming onslaught of pain.

 _“Over the years, you have made me feel like a man worthy of your love,” he had murmured in a voice that was almost a purr. “I don’t question that I am a part of your legacy. I think the time has come for me to step out of your shadow and take my place at your side. Let me help you. We will rebuild Kirkwall together.”_

She had expected something grave to fall from his lips. The expression on his face had brought with it the expectation that he might be afraid in the face of their wedding. Yet, this, what he had truly said, astonished her and filled her from toe to jagged crown with pride and love.

Her fingers suddenly itched to stroke his face, and Esperanza found herself clenching her right hand into a fist. Fenris was busy, she was busy, and she would be unlikely to see him until the dinner hour. They didn’t have any intended guests, so it would be a private affair in their suite, at the smaller dining table.

“You’re smiling.”

Esperanza had almost forgotten that Sebastian was still standing before her, and now he was watching her with a grin on his own face, curiosity in his gaze. “I’m proud of him. He’s taken a lot on his shoulders when he didn’t really need to do so.”

“Tell him that when he finalizes the plans for the new Chantry, we should have a meal together to celebrate.” Sebastian’s gaze diverted to the window for a moment. “Unfortunately, I should be going. I don’t like to complain about the Maker’s work, but there are still preparations to be made before the new Grand Cleric arrives.”

“You’re not complaining. It’s a statement of fact.” Stepping out from behind her writing table, Esperanza paused only to take her dark green cloak from the peg on which it hung. “At any rate, I promised Aveline and Donnic that I’d meet them for lunch. Would you like an escort down the steps?”

“Certainly.” Sebastian slid the letter into a pocket of his robes. “You’ll have to give them my best.”

Esperanza fastened her cloak around her body, stepped toward the door, then turned back toward the nearly empty room. It was a ritual that she performed, without fail, every time she left the study within the Keep for an afternoon meal.

Her gaze moved toward any shadow that her hazel eyes could find – the pool of darkness between her chair and the window, the sharpness of the corner near the table that held her tea service and container of tea, and the dusty space where the Rivaini rug ended and the bookshelf stood. She looked for any movement, any color that might not belong, any ethereal form that might confirm the pricking that tickled the back of her mind.

She saw nothing out of the ordinary, but that did not change her methodical behavior.

Smiling again, Esperanza whispered to the empty room:” Have a good lunch, Marlowe. I’ll need your wisdom when I return.”

Sebastian raised both of his eyebrows. “Is Viscount Dumar haunting you?”

“Oh, no. I don’t think so.” Esperanza turned to look at Sebastian, the smile lingering on her lips. “It’s just something that I always do. This is Kirkwall. We all know that the Veil is thin here. I just want to make sure that the ghosts in the Keep stay at rest. It can’t hurt.”

“Esperanza, I’m surprised at you.” An expression of relief washed over Sebastian’s face as his voice took on a slightly scolding tone. “Certainly you must know that Viscount Dumar feared and loved the Maker, and must have immediately gone to His side when the Arishok executed him. You shouldn’t fear that he didn’t reap the rewards of a pious life.”

“I don’t.” Red crept into Esperanza’s cheeks, but not due to Sebastian’s scolding. It had been a bad idea to let him have a glimpse at her personal ritual, which had been formed from superstition and now lay in habit. “Let’s go, shall we? I don’t want to keep Aveline and Donnic waiting.”

As they moved from the room and the guard at the door shut it behind them, Esperanza felt embarrassment shift into a strange, detached sense of approval. In the massive, chilled main hall, with its tons upon tons of ancient marble above and below them, it seemed for a moment that a warm wind brushed a tuft of her graying hair, sending it backward toward her right ear, but not quite behind it. A warm, crisp scent of mint reached her face, causing Esperanza to wrinkle her nose to avoid sneezing. There was something familiar and comforting in the smell, mixed with the scent, inviting her to an unknown place and nameless hospitality.

Mint tea. She could name the scent at last as she silently descended the staircase toward the main floor of the hall. Neither she nor Fenris drank mint tea, yet she had found a half-empty tin, covered in dust, filled with the stuff when they moved into the Viscount’s Keep nearly two years before.

She did not ponder the scent further. Below them, the doors to the Keep opened, and Fenris strode into the chamber.

Immediately, Esperanza caught something exciting in the air about him, energy in his step, and pride in the way that his shoulders squared. His thick blue cloak floated on the air behind him, fluttering with the speed and intent of his walking.

When Fenris caught sight of Sebastian and Esperanza, he stopped in his tracks, and held up something that he held in one gloved hand, an object that looked like a rather large scroll. “A present for you, Brother Sebastian,” he said in a broad voice that echoed off the surrounding walls, causing the nobles waiting in the main hallway to pause in their discussions and turn to look at him. “Your new Chantry, just approved by the Reconstruction Council.”

Sebastian let out a small laugh as his mouth widened in a large grin. “You’re kidding me!”

“I don’t joke about things like this.” Fenris gave the scroll a small wave. “Come and see.”

With an almost childish spring in his step, Sebastian descended the staircase and moved toward Fenris. In the time that it took Sebastian to cross the room toward the elf, Fenris unfastened the gold ribbon that held the scroll closed, walked over to one of the hall’s ornate tables, and unrolled the scroll completely.

Esperanza moved slower, aware that the eyes of the nobles were on her, and therefore, certain decorum should be maintained. She could not quell her curiosity, however, at the results of several months of her husband’s hard work and negotiations. She was relieved once she reached the two men.

The scroll was, more accurately, a series of carefully drawn schematics, each drawing carefully measured and covered with notes concerning materials and sizes.

“We will begin clearing the remains of the old Chantry tomorrow morning.” Fenris made a small noise of dissent. “At seventh bell, no less. The nobles will complain about the noise, but we’ve not a single hour to waste. Already, we are looking at a five year timetable for construction.”

“Five years.” Sebastian let out a low whistle. “If it takes that long to make a proper gift for the Maker, then so be it. Did they approve the home for orphans?”

“I had to make some concessions, but yes, they did.” With a tug on a page that sat in the center of the others, Fenris pulled out a rather elaborate drawing of what appeared to be a map of several smaller rooms, and placed it on top. “And they approved the academy, but again, you might not like what I had to do.” Resting his gloved hands on the plans, Fenris looked between Esperanza and Sebastian. “The Council wants a large endowment from the White Divine – and one from the Hawke coffers, as well.”

“How much are we talking about?” Esperanza found her posture straightening as she returned Fenris’s gaze.

“We can afford it, but we’ll feel it.” Fenris hissed between his teeth, then said softly: “Ten thousand.”

“Maker.” Esperanza allowed herself a single, long breath before her mind rested on the account books, which were resting in a room deep within the Keep. “We can make it back if we have a good two years at the mine, but…” She waved a hand, dismissing the thought of ledgers and the mine both. “Never mind. We’ll do it.”

“You want the White Divine to give an endowment of ten thousand crowns?” Sebastian tilted his head. “That’s just not possible, Fenris. Not with a war and a rebellion going on.”

“Taxes and gifts from the nobles won’t cover the cost.” Intensity built in Fenris’s gaze. “Varric already negotiated the price for the materials down to ten percent above cost. We can’t go any lower. Do you want your academy, or not?”

Sighing, Sebastian pinched the bridge of his nose. “Grand Cleric Deulane says that the academy is key to making sure that in the future, there will be no rebellions due to an overabundance of ignorance. She’s already developed entire volumes of lessons that will be taught in those schoolrooms.” He raised his head slightly, staring up at the balcony just above their heads. “I will see what might be gleaned from the pockets of Kirkwall’s citizens, and I’ll have Deulane write to the Divine for the rest. Will that conflict with your timetable?”

Fenris grunted. “I’ll instruct the architects to work on the academy last, and come up with an alternate plan if we can’t afford to complete it. Perhaps I’ll bring the Viscountess’s suggestion of an Orlesian meditation garden back to the table again.”

“The people deserve a Chantry to rival the Grand Cathedral after all they’ve been through, and very few of them are arguing against it.” Esperanza looked between the two men on either side of her. “Do what needs to be done. You know that I trust you both without question.”

“Keep these plans. I had them copied for you and the new Grand Cleric.” Fenris rolled up the scroll, replaced the ribbon, and held it out to Sebastian. “I intend to visit the site every day in the morning. You’re welcome to join me.”

Sebastian nodded his head as he took the plans. “I don’t think I’ll be able to go every single morning, but once a week, certainly.” He glanced between Esperanza and Fenris. “Forgive me if I sound ungrateful. You two have done a great deal for the Chantry. I will pray that we can afford this cathedral, which would be a house of worship barely worthy of the Maker. I’ll see you two soon?”

“Of course,” replied Esperanza, clasping her hands together, keeping her posture as formal as possible. After all, they were still being watched.

“See you tomorrow, then.” Fenris inclined his head ever-so-slightly in Sebastian’s direction.

As Sebastian left the Keep, Esperanza heard Fenris speaking in such low tones that she could hardly hear him over the din of conversation within the chamber. “I assume that you are going to still meet Aveline and Donnic.”

“Come. Join us.” Her hazel eyes gleamed as she turned to look at her husband. “I assure you, it’s nothing formal. We’re not even planning on having a table there.”

“Mm, informal.” Fenris raised his eyebrows. “Sounds like fun. We might want to take the carriage, though. It’s snowing.”

“Snowing?” Now, it was Esperanza’s turn to be surprised. “This is Kirkwall. It never snows.”

“See for yourself.” Fenris offered Esperanza his arm, a rare gesture of affection in public, so very rare that she felt compelled to take the arm, to let him lead her to the door.

His arm was warm. Beneath the thick, plush fabric of his tunic and the linen shirt beneath, she could feel his bicep muscle, taut and lean and filled with potential power. As they crossed the room, with the eyes of the nobles remaining on them, Esperanza could almost feel his good mood in the chilled air. This was unusual for Fenris, even in the past year, when he seemed to thrive in this new life of theirs.

The door opened, and Esperanza saw a world filled with snowflakes – large tufts the size of a copper, falling with an almost perceptible swishing noise through the cold, still air. As the flakes sought rest upon the steps of the Keep, however, they vanished entirely into the granite, leaving rapidly-spreading dark spots behind.

The doors closed behind them with a great creak and a greater thump. Suddenly, there was the tickle of soft skin against Esperanza’s right ear, and a comforting wave of warm breath. “Might I request an audience with the Viscountess tonight?” Fenris murmured.

There was correspondence to write. Among the letters was one that she had been meaning to reply to for over a month, one that held the Theirin seal, now acting as a collector for small grey motes of dust as it sat on the corner of the writing table in their private sitting room.

It could wait another night.

Yes. She would ask for two bottles of wine to be delivered to their quarters, and would dismiss the servants for the rest of the evening. They were capable of drawing a bath if they wanted one, or raiding the kitchen if they felt hungry.

Inside of the bedchamber, they could be as loud as they pleased. Then again, it wasn’t as though that having countless servants around had stopped them from doing so before.

Raising her head, Esperanza answered his request with silence and a look that said its own words, with eyes that spoke of desire. She watched him for a moment, as the snow fell onto his ragged hair, clinging to the strands before vanishing forever.

He narrowed his eyes. Then, with a small growl, he took her hand in his, leading her down the steps toward the carriage.

“Thomas, the front gate, if you please.” Esperanza gasped out the words as the driver opened the enclosed carriage, allowing them both within the much warmer, much darker chamber within. No sooner did the door close behind them that Fenris let go of her hand, using both of his to lower the curtains that let sunlight into the carriage.

Esperanza was plunged into darkness, and suddenly, Fenris’s lips were on hers, forceful and fevered all at once. She pushed back, pushed him onto his back, into the seat, her lips parting, her tongue sliding past his, then out, allowing a chance for her teeth to nip at his upper lip.

It had been too long and they had both been working far too hard.

It took a quarter of an hour to go, by carriage, to the front gate. Esperanza knew this well, as she knew the blue velvet trousers that he wore well enough to unlace them in the dark and without their lips parting. Her right hand started at one of his knees, moved up to his slim, muscular thigh, and over to the laces, already stretching and straining from the trapped bulk within. Using her broken, short fingernails, she traced the shape of his length, moving over the hidden veins, scratching the needful, delicate skin beneath.

Fenris hissed beneath his teeth and into her mouth. His own fingers found one of her nipples, slightly erect from the cold, beneath her cloak and dress. His thumbnail traced a circle. Scratched a long, luxurious line over the mound. His finger and thumb came together and pinched.

Gasping into his mouth, Esperanza slid away and down, down between his legs and booted feet. She freed him of the trousers with a single tug, grateful and elated both by the fact that he had neglected to wear smalls again. As she slid his entire length between her lips, the atmosphere filled with the smell of him, of his lust and desire and the new leather of his boots.

Outside, the sounds of the city filled her ears. The carriage offered great privacy in terms of sight; the people of Kirkwall could not see what occupied their Viscountess unless she wished it. However, any sounds above conversational level could easily be heard by passers-by.

It was for this reason that Fenris did not moan, but instead uttered several long, heated breaths. His long fingers slid up, over the obsidian crown upon her head, and down to the curls of hair that had been arranged to cascade down to the nape of her neck.

Esperanza could feel the tension inside of every stroke her mouth made, and under the feverish, taut skin with every swipe of her tongue. Fenris had been thinking about this for hours, perhaps fantasizing about it. Tightening her lips around him, she relaxed her throat, and allowed his entire length to slide completely within her warm, wet mouth.

The rumble that escaped his own lips made her smile, along with the way that he tensed, spreading his knees wider as he pulsed within her mouth.

Outside of the carriage, barkers in marketplace stalls announced their wares – linens, vegetables, imported coffee, even choice cuts of meat. They neared the gates as Esperanza felt Fenris’s hands tighten in her hair, then pull at the curls as pulses turned longer and fuller and he spilled inside of her, down her throat. She couldn’t help but gag, rocking back on her heels, leaving only the tip between her lips until he had finished.

Then, she sat up, letting him fall free of her mouth with a soft, wet sloshing sound. Licking her lips, she swallowed hard. It was a gesture that Fenris could not see, but it was perhaps the thought of it that mattered most.

In the darkness, his thumb found her lips, tracing the soft flesh with a gentle touch only marred by the calluses on his hands. “Come,” he whispered, withdrawing his hand, leaving small scratches on her mouth. “You do not want to let your people see you kneeling before me, no matter what the circumstance.”

Again and again and so often, Fenris spoke the blunt truth. He cared so deeply for her that he cared also for the position that she held, and made sure that, no matter what, that nothing would compromise that.

It was one of the reasons that she loved him so dearly and completely that she could not imagine being separated from him.

When they disembarked from the carriage, Esperanza prayed that no one would notice that the curls that her handmaid had put in her hair that morning were most definitely astray. She was certain, also, that there was more color in her cheeks than usual.

After all, Fenris’s face looked unusually flushed, and his first few steps were rather unsteady. This sight brought a smirk to Esperanza’s lips that she was unable to contain.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Aveline tells Hawke and Fenris about some difficulties in the guard. Cullen gets involved.

Two

“I know that I shouldn’t approve of this,” Esperanza murmured to Aveline.

The smallest of grins rose to Aveline’s lips. “Neither should I, and yet, somehow, I am. Imagine that.”

Several yards away from the place where they stood, atop Kirkwall’s thick city walls, a city guard added several pieces of wood to an already roaring fire. Above this flame, someone had erected what appeared to be a makeshift stove crafted from a metal cylinder, whose original purpose Esperanza could not divine. On the top of this stove lay a number of sizzling pieces of beef and slices of an onion.

Donnic laughed, his voice seeming almost stilted in the chilled air. He stepped back, swatting at the guardsman that now ducked playfully out of his reach. Then, moving back to the stove, he returned to shivering and poking at the cooking food with a wooden-handled fork. “What do you think? Baste it with more mead?”

“More mead!” Shouted one of the guardsmen, raising a tankard high into the air.

“No, no more mead!” Aveline shouted as she held up a hand. “Some of you are on duty, and the Viscountess is right here!”

A few feet away from Donnic, another guardsman squatted before a second, smaller fire, which held over it a kettle filled with lard and cut potatoes. Fenris bent over, stole one of the finished chips from a paper-lined basket, and took a bite. “I don’t know. Maybe it will give the meat a bit more color? I am no cook.”

“It’s not the Keep,” Aveline said, her tones almost apologetic. “Had I known it was going to bloody snow, I’d have suggested one of the inns in Hightown, at least.”

Esperanza rested a hand on Aveline’s arm. “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” she said as the cold from Aveline’s armor seeped through her leather gloves.

“Donnic, you best stop playing chef and blow out these candles.” A female elf guard gestured at a wooden barrel, atop which sat an elaborately decorated and frosted cake covered with candles. The flames kept flickering and extinguishing from the occasional gusts of freezing wind, which would send the guardsmen scrambling to relight them.

Shouts of “Happy Name Day!” rose up from among the gathered guards, along with cheers and fragments of applause.

Still holding his long-handled fork, Donnic crossed the battlement toward the barrel, bent over, and blew out the candles. Further applause broke out, but this time Aveline, Esperanza, and Fenris joined in.

Again, Aveline held up a hand for silence. “Those of you on duty: you have exactly a quarter of an hour to celebrate, then back to your patrols. If you’ve finished eating, the sooner that you return to work, the better. Hopefully, the criminals are too cold to try anything today.”

Donnic placed a steak on a plate, added a handful of onions and chips, and extended it toward Aveline. “At least crime has been down over the past year.”

“That’s good to hear.” Esperanza gave a nod of thanks to the guard standing next to her, who handed her a slice of the cake and a fork. “It seems like tensions have finally cooled off.”

“And yet…” Aveline took a bite of the onion, chewed, swallowed and sighed. “You’re going to think I’m mad, Hawke. I almost didn’t want to tell you about this. You can thank Donnic for encouraging me.”

Donnic raised his head at the sound of his name. “Is this about Hightown?” He asked, looking at Aveline as he filled another plate.

“What’s the matter?” Fenris moved to stand at Esperanza’s side.

“Ghosts.” Aveline speared a piece of meat on her pocket knife, and held it lightly in one hand. “The weird behavior started shortly after the transition. None of the guards wanted the Hightown night patrol but none would be honest with me about the reason why. So, Donnic and I did the patrol one night. The first time, we saw nothing out of the ordinary. We decided that there was something that the guards were playing at, something that they didn’t want to discuss with me, and as long as it wasn’t harming the guard, we would leave well enough alone.” Aveline’s gaze fell on the piece of meat, her lips turning down in a frown.

“Then, Curtis turned up dead.” Donnic pulled up a crate and sat down next to Aveline. “He was a good guardsman. Nobody’s fool.”

“There had been so little in the way of crime in Hightown that I saw no reason to have two patrolling guards when there were already four at static posts at night,” Aveline said in a softer voice. “Curtis was patrolling alone. He never returned to the barracks that morning, so we went out searching for him. We found nothing, not for days. Then, a week later, someone found him in the middle of the ruins of the Chantry.”

“Yes, I heard about this.” Fenris stood up straighter. “One of the builders found his corpse. No one knew how he managed to make his way so deep into the ruins without being detected. There’s a large barrier that prevents unauthorized entry. Even I couldn’t break through it without disturbing half of Hightown.”

“It was how he was found that disturbs me.” Aveline’s voice remained soft. “There was no sign of violence. No wounds. No unusual bruising on the body. Just…feathers.”

“Feathers?” Esperanza raised both of her eyebrows as she looked up at Fenris.

“Crow’s feathers. We had a bird expert examine them for us,” Aveline continued. “The expert said that they had been preserved and were likely part of a garment, though he couldn’t figure out what kind.” She gave a light shake of her head. “At any rate, when Curtis was found, the guards started to come to me, one by one, wanting to talk privately. Some of them believed that they were going mad. Others were just hoping that it would all go away. Almost every guard that had worked the Hightown patrol had some sort of encounter that they could not explain. Some would feel dizzy while walking in front of the barricades that block off the Chantry. Others smelled strange smells or claimed that they heard music.”

“Guard Blaire was the first to see a ghost.” Donnic averted his gaze toward Aveline, but only briefly. “She swears that she saw First Enchanter Orsino walking through Hightown on one night. Another night, she heard a voice saying that they needed to speak to someone. She didn’t catch a name, though.”

“Why is this the first time I’ve heard of this?” Esperanza’s gaze came to rest on Fenris.

Setting his plate on the edge of the wall, Fenris returned her gaze. “You were not told about Guard Curtis because it was deemed a matter best kept within the guard. As for the ghosts, we are aware of Kirkwall’s history. The city is haunted. The Veil is thin here; this isn’t news.”

Aveline stared at the plate of meat resting in her lap. “The other night, Donnic and I did the patrol again. This time…” She trailed off, pressed her lips together for a moment, then finished her sentence: “…when we walked past the Chantry, I blacked out.”

“Blacked out?” Esperanza almost forgot her own plate, and had to snatch it quickly as it started to slip off of her own lap. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. I had a physician examine me afterwards.” Aveline offered her a smile, but an uneasy one at best. “I’m in perfect health, as usual.” The smile vanished. “There’s several hours that I cannot remember. I know that I left the barracks with Donnic. I remember talking with him. Then, the next thing I remember, I was back in our house, out of my armor, and in bed.”

Donnic glanced over his shoulder, waiting as a pair of guards walked past him, offered their congratulations, then went through a door that led to a winding staircase. Only when the door closed behind them did he speak: “Aveline started staring at the Chantry. She started talking to someone. At first, I thought she was talking to me, but when she started referring to me as if I wasn’t there, I knew that something was wrong. I thought she was ill with a fever. When I tried to get her to sit and rest for a bit, she attacked me. It took four guards to pin her down. Then, she stopped fighting. She just let us take her back to the house, but she was staring the entire time, staring past us as if we weren’t even there.”

“Did you catch any of the conversation Aveline was having?” Esperanza shifted her gaze toward Donnic.

“Something about an investigation of a Fereldan,” Donnic said with a shake of his head. “She said that she wrote a letter. Then there was something about me being at home.”

“I’ve investigated a lot of Fereldans,” said Aveline. “It not only doesn’t ring a bell, that conversation could have taken place any time from the moment that I joined the guard to last month.”

“A nine year span,” murmured Fenris. “It sounds as though this might be worth further investigation.” He began to tap his gloved fingers lightly on the wall.

“It doesn’t surprise me that there are ghosts around the Chantry.” Esperanza rested one of her hands beneath her chin. She stared past Aveline and Donnic, her gaze distant, as memories flooded her mind.

A flood of brilliant pink light.

An explosion followed with a voice so very loud that it tore into her ears, shattering windows all around Hightown with a loud pop and crash that seemed to add to the roar all at once.

The Chantry did not explode. It imploded, crumbled, swept into a vortex that certainly signified the tearing of the Veil.

“To be honest, we don’t know what we might find when we begin to clear away the remains of the Chantry,” Fenris said in a quiet voice. “There are no original plans for the Chantry, nor the Keep, or anything else in Hightown. Who knows what the Tevinter Magisters may have hidden in the Chantry, or in their homes?”

“I hate to say it – I know what you’re going to say, Fenris – but it might be easier to have a mage take a look around the Chantry.” Aveline looked at him as she said this, employing a stony look that suggested that she was going to stand her ground. “None of us are trained to look at the Veil, or fix the Veil, or whatever will make these ghosts stop attacking my guardsmen.”

“Then you know that I’m going to strongly recommend that the Viscountess reject that suggestion.” Fenris stood up straighter, crossing his arms. “There is always a solution that does not require magic.”

“Not to mention that, not surprisingly, the Circle has a total of eleven residents and none of them are above the age of thirty.” Esperanza laid aside her plate. Her hunger had become a distant memory the moment that the topic of magic had been mentioned. “No Enchanters, and no one at any of the other Circles are exactly stepping forward to take Orsino’s position.”

“What about Merril?” Donnic asked.

Fenris made a low noise of deferment. “I thought we weren’t going to talk of magic.”

“The last thing I knew of her, she was heading for Antiva to study some Dalish ruins there.” Esperanza gave a small shrug of her shoulders. She was glad that Merril was gone, and hoped that the elf, wherever she was, was heeding her promise to never again practice blood magic.

Fenris looked down, beyond the wall, at the gates below them. “Perhaps we’re all going about this the wrong way,” he said. Raising a hand, he beckoned toward Esperanza with two fingers.

She rose, catching the sound of several horses rushing into the gates as she looked down at the street below. Four Templars on horseback escorted a fifth in the center of their pack. This Templar wore brightly-polished armor, and the red cloak and golden crown of a Knight-Commander.

“I’m not exactly certain what they can do.” Aveline, too, leaned against the wall as she gazed at the street. “It _is_ a start.”

~*~

“Congratulations on your promotion.” Esperanza accepted the teacup offered to her by a blank-eyed Tranquil woman. “I never had the chance to tell you that before you left for Orlais.”

Knight-Commander Cullen smiled at her as he removed his gauntlets. “I thank you. Though, begging your pardon, it would have been more proper for you to summon me to the Keep.”

“I was in the neighborhood, and you just got home.” Esperanza returned the smile. “It would have been rude to ask you to climb back on your horse, in the freezing cold, and ride all the way up to the Keep.”

“Rude, but well within your rights as Viscountess.” He handed the gauntlets to a Tranquil man that stood next to him. “Barthald, have the kitchen send up something hot, and a lot of it. I didn’t have any breakfast. Do you mind if I eat while we talk, Your Excellency?”

“Of course not. I’ll try not to stay long.” Esperanza watched as the Tranquil known as Barthald bowed, then left the room as silently as possible. “I have no doubt that you’ll want to rest after your long journey.” Gently, she placed the teacup on the front of Cullen’s writing table. “You are exceptionally well trained, and have been with the Order for many years. Might you be able to do something about a rather large-scale haunting?”

“If you’re talking about Kirkwall as a whole, then you won’t mind if I express my bewilderment at the mere scale of that task?” Sitting on the ornate chair behind the writing desk, Cullen began to unlace his legplates.

“What about something smaller – like Hightown and the Chantry?” Esperanza carefully watched Cullen’s face as she spoke, though she was sorely tempted to see Fenris’s reaction to this discussion.

Fenris stood behind her, resting his hands on the back of her chair. He remained silent and almost motionless.

“If you point me or my men in the direction of a demon or ghost, we will be more than happy to do our duty.” Cullen continued to tug at the leather laces surrounding his thickly-muscled legs. “This problem is more general, isn’t it? Else you would have sent the Guard-Captain rather than coming on your own. I’ll be very honest with you, Excellency. The men and women under my command have unshakable faith and serve the Maker without question. I have no doubt that we could put up a fight were they to follow me directly into the Void. But, in truth, if there are tears in the Veil in Hightown – which I don’t doubt that there are – you’d have an easier time of dealing with them with a few mages at your side. Mages closely supervised, of course, by my men. There’s not a better option.”

“What about a safer alternative?” Esperanza caught the warning in Fenris’s voice as he spoke.

“The mages remaining at the Circle are nearly harmless. Only three have been properly Harrowed, and five of them are underage.” Cullen snorted as he placed one of his legplates on the floor next to him, and started unlacing the next. “When I say that they’re harmless, I mean that they could no sooner summon a demon than I could.”

“No mage is truly harmless.” The words that fell from Fenris’s lips were ones that Esperanza anticipated, almost down to the exact choice of word order in the sentence.

“Normally, I would be inclined to agree,” said Cullen with an acknowledging nod. “But a seven year old boy who wets his bed every night, and a ten year old girl who makes dolls out of scraps of fabric are hardly the same sort that followed Orsino.”

“The Circle is not an option, then.” Esperanza sliced her hand through the air, hoping to cut off what was sure to turn into an argument.

“Very well.” Cullen sat up for a moment, his remaining legplate hanging off of his leg. “I don’t need seventy-two men watching eleven mages. I’ll come tomorrow to the Chantry with a complement of my best men. In the meantime, I’ll refamilarize myself with purging and exorcism rituals. I haven’t used either on a building in ages.”

“Serah Leto will be there by the seventh bell.” Esperanza folded her hands in her lap, trying to return calm to the room. “Report to him when you arrive, and keep him updated of your progress. I don’t mind if you take several days, or a week, or more. Take as long as you need to do the job completely.” She sighed deliberately, an attempt to look less antagonistic. “Kirkwall has gained a reputation in Thedas for being a dangerous place to live. I would like to change that reputation, if it is within my power.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Esperanza is attacked.

Chapter Three

“Messere.”

Esperanza opened her eyes, wincing as light flooded into the bedchamber. She was not met by the golden light of the coming dawn – in fact, a glance at the window told her that the sun had not yet risen from its own rest – but from torches carried by two guardsmen, one of which was the female elf that she recalled seeing at Donnic’s Name Day celebration.

It was then that she realized that she and Fenris had fallen asleep immediately after making love, and that she did not wear a single item of clothing. Fortunately, the bedclothes rested well around her neck, allowing her to maintain her modesty.

“What?” Esperanza blinked, then reached a hand out of the warm blankets in order to rub her eyes. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”

Behind her, she felt Fenris’s skin slide against hers as he sat up in bed. He, however, had the luxury of allowing the blankets to fall into his lap, despite the bone-aching chilled air in the room.

“Message from the Guard-Captain, Your Excellency,” the elf guard said. “The Chantry is under attack.”

“By who?” Fenris’s voice didn’t sound the least bit tired. For an elf who had certainly been in the arms of a deep slumber moments before, he sounded starkly alert.

“Demons, Messere.” The guard turned her gaze toward Fenris.

“No one should be down there – what time is it?” The bedclothes started to slip away from Esperanza’s shoulders, and she caught them just as they began to tumble past her bare breasts.

“Half-past fourth bell.” The guard lowered her torch somewhat, the flickering flames casting long shadows upon her sharply-featured face. “The workers arrived early and started putting together their machines. Suddenly, there were demons everywhere.”

“Don’t get out of bed, Your Excellency. I’ll handle this.” Dragging one of the lighter coverlets with him as he rose, Fenris deftly wrapped it around his waist.

Esperanza shook her head, hard, to clear the foggy thoughts that rested upon her mind. “Like the Void, you will. Awaken Ellie, if you will, guardsman. Tell her to ready my armor.”

“There’s no time. I’ll help you.” Fenris started toward the door that led directly into their private armory. Inside, their weapons and armor awaited – all oiled, polished, and ready.

“Ready our horses, then, guardsmen.” Snatching the coverlet and pushing it around her body, Esperanza rose from the bed. She offered a silent prayer that in the deep shadows of the bedchamber, the guardsmen would be unable to see her bare backside.

~*~

The cold ignored her cloak and only sought to seep into Esperanza’s armor, leaving long streaks of white frost wherever her breath graced. Grinding her teeth, she focused on riding, on the cobblestone streets ahead of her, on the echo of horse hooves upon walls of stone and plaster.

Clip-clop.

Clip-clop.

Fenris’s horse, a black mare named Azina, snorted, missed a beat, then sneezed. Ahead of them, in the mazelike streets themselves, Esperanza could hear the cacophony of battle. Screams and cries overlapped one another, weaving with the crashing of weapons against steel and bone and unrestrained roars twisted with ear-shattering howls.

The sleep of Kirkwall’s upper crust would most certainly be disturbed. Esperanza hoped that it would not be a permanent condition.

Fenris reached the end of one of the streets that led to the Chantry, and swiftly dismounted. In one single, fluid movement, he drew his sword, the sheath ringing still as he charged forward and around the corner.

Silencing every thought of self-preservation that Esperanza had cultivated during her time as Viscountess, she did as Fenris had done, her own sword held before her as she turned the corner. Death itself greeted her on the frost-laden air. It was not the sight of violence that caused her to reel and hesitate, but the smell of the air in the compact courtyard. Blood and ichors stained the cobblestones and thickened every breath that Esperanza took with reminders of rotting flesh and diminished lives.

Fenris charged toward a moaning desire demon, who dodged his initial attack by swaying her hips. Behind them, a nobleman wearing pajamas and a shield the size of a carriage door aided two guardsmen in an attack on a pair of shades.

The bloodlust rose within Esperanza, driving her throat to emit a wordless battle cry and her feet to join in the charge, rushing into the square and, with but a moment’s hesitation, past Fenris and his chosen foe. Ahead of her, the barricade, which had once been a tidy fence of sharpened planks and large iron spikes, had been not only torn into a number of pieces, but set aflame. Beyond that, the ruins of the Chantry awaited her, the stained steps leading upward to a set of yawning stone doors, each cracked and dented beyond possible repair.

A shade met her charge, and was quickly cut into a pile of dust with one hard stroke of Esperanza’s blade. Her teeth bared, she moved through the flames where they flickered at their lowest point, pivoted on a heel, and barely dodged the molten hand of a rage demon.

As she raised her sword to attack, she heard something whistle past her left ear. The demon staggered, its non-existent eyes each pierced by a single arrow. Rearing up, the creature let out a mighty roar before collapsing into a heap of ashes.

Turning around, Esperanza raised her gaze toward the second floor of a nearby home. Half-shielded by a gargoyle, she saw Sebastian standing there, pushing a brown hood off of his head with one hand. In the other, he held his bow. She saw that beneath his short cloak, which had been pinned back to allow free movement of his arms, he wore his old armor.

Fingers touching his brow in the way of a salute, Sebastian shouted something, but over the din, Esperanza could not hear it. Returning the salute, Esperanza faced the Chantry once again, just in time to dispatch another shade that hissed as it slid toward her.

The remains of the shade exploded into a thick cloud of ashes. Coughing convulsively, Esperanza covered her mouth with one of her armored arms, then strode forward into the Chantry ruins itself. The cacophony of battle behind her faded as she moved through the pair of damaged doors.

Though the scent of the charred barricade and spilled blood still reached her nostrils, it did so with only faint fingertips. Raising her head, Esperanza found herself staring up at the stars themselves, the constellations bright even in the very early hour of the day, the single pinpoints of light piercing through the velvet sky and weaving their way through what remained of the Chantry roof. Of this, not much remained – only two beams near the door and a single, charred cross-brace near the altar.

She had expected the ruins to be dark, but such a thing was not possible – not unless the moon had neglected to show itself, and not without a roof on the Chantry. The clear, clean moonlight cast long shadows where jagged walls still stood, their exposed beams and rocky outcroppings stretching their broken arms toward the Maker. It was as if the Chantry itself cried out for healing from the One whose worship it had once housed. As it was the Maker from which it made this request, these cries went ignored.

Healing.

Healed.

From between her parted, parched lips came pants of exertion, gasps of frosty air that curled upward and vanished before it rose higher than she stood tall. A puff of unseen breath touched her left ear, tickled the hairs on the back of her neck, and whispered in a sibilant voice: “You cannot heal what is irreversibly broken.”

Esperanza turned quickly, expecting to see Fenris standing behind her. However, even in the moment that she looked in the empty space between herself and the door, she knew that it was not Fenris that had spoken. These were not the tones that she had so grown to love.

Blinking her eyes hard, she fixed them on the space between the two destroyed doors. She had not heard anything but her own breathing and her own footsteps, and anything beyond that was an element of her own imagination. She had no more heard a voice in her ear than she had felt the touches on her shoulder or hair while in her study in the Viscount’s Keep, nor the scent of mint that seemed to pervade the public areas.

The chilled air, at last, penetrated her plate armor and her tunic beneath. Fingers slid over her bare shoulders, down her arms, bringing gooseflesh to the skin wherever they touched. Gritting her teeth to keep them from chattering, Esperanza fought the urge to run a hand over her arms. It wasn’t as though she could touch her own skin with the plate armor protecting much of her body.

The fingers dug inward, suddenly and violently, piercing her skin, her flesh beneath, forcing their way into bone and blood. With a mighty shriek that rivaled the music of battle before her, Esperanza fell to her knees, her legplates clattering as they met with the cracked marble floor, her gauntlets rattling as she pounded her open hands once, twice, three times on the ground.

This time, when the voice spoke in her ear, the breath that carried the disembodied tones brought frost to her skin, stinging it, sending angry needles of pain down her neck. “Hawke…The things I did for you…the things you did to me…to all of us…still…”

She blinked, and was no longer cold.

She was warm.

She was light and free, young again, running beneath a bright sun. The sun was golden and the sky was a brilliant blue, the trees filled with autumn leaves and chattering songbirds.

Her bare feet slapped against the dying grass as she ran, the hems of her ragged breeches rubbing up against her scabby knees.

“Come on, Gisela!” She shouted in a voice that was not her own, pure joy and exhilaration driving her footsteps and her breathless words. Ahead was the barn, a place that was private, a place with a loft where she could read books and daydream without being bothered by Mama and Papa.

She reached the barn, her bare toes digging in the mud there as she slid a few inches toward the doors. Her hands and arms flapped like a featherless bird as she struggled to steady herself. She could not fall. Not in front of Gisela.

Turning for just a moment, her eyes took in the sight of Gisela – brown hair in plaits, each tied with a plain grey ribbon, her dress and apron ragged and patched with scraps of old fabric that did not match. Yet, despite the sad state of her clothing, the girl’s face filled with merriment, from the freckles that sprinkled her nose to the wide grin upon her lips.

“I want to show you something. Come on!” Esperanza seized one of the girl’s hands in hers and led her quickly into the barn, in the shadow of one of the doors, between the wall and bales of hay stacked much higher than they both stood tall.

Gisela allowed her hand to drop. She stepped away from Esperanza, her back coming to press against the nearest door. The smile remained on her lips; its intent changed as she closed her lips, hiding her teeth away in a serene expression that appeared almost womanlike. “What do you have to show me, Kastien?”

Esperanza stared at those lips. Gisela was her best friend. They had shared so many things together – secrets, adventures, even a few apples stolen from the orchard down the road. She had watched her grow from a girl to whatever she was now, not yet a woman, barely twelve. The strange feelings that had been moving through Esperanza’s entire body over the past few months had changed the way that she truly looked at her friend.

She longed, more than she could even express with word or thought, to kiss Gisela. She could tell that this was Gisela expected, from the way that Gisela barely puckered her lips to the fact that she was holding both of her hands behind her back in an expression of complete abandon and trust.

No. Instead, Esperanza wanted nothing more to share something secret and wonderful with Gisela. Holding up her hand, palm up and cupped, Esperanza concentrated on the wrinkles in the skin, the smears of dirt on her fingers, and thought hard about Mama’s oven.

At first, a single wisp of grey smoke rose up from the center of her palm. Then, this wisp turned into a single spark, no larger than a small coin, which danced and crackled in the small depression within her thin hand.

She smiled as she looked up from the flame that she, herself, had created. In the space of time that it took for her gaze to move from her own hand to the face of her dearest friend, her soul filled with expectation. This was a secret that she and Gisela could share. This was theirs and theirs alone. No longer would they be cold when their mothers forced them out of doors, even in the most miserable part of the winter. They would have this, together, and it would be beautiful.

But there was no beauty upon Gisela’s freckled face. Instead there was horror, sheer panic in her wide brown eyes. The hands that had been clasped behind her back now were held out before her as a shield.

“Get away from me!” Her quiet voice sounded so very strained and so very alien. “Mage!”

This should have been beautiful. This should have been a glorious moment, one in which Esperanza bared her soul before her friend, and her friend would embrace her with both wonder and affirmation. Now it tarnished with every gesture that Gisela made, how she pressed her back against the door, her hands trembling, whimpers escaping from her lips as she tried to squeeze past Esperanza.

“No!” Panic filled Esperanza’s voice. “I’m not!” Mages were big. Mages were bad. Mages were locked away in towers, far away from little girls and little boys and their families. Esperanza knew that she was not a mage. She knew it.

“Get away from me, mage!” Gisela ran, out of the barn, out of the farm, and through the pile of leaves that, hours before, they had both dove into. They had laughed. They had rolled and jumped with wild abandon, like children on the cusp of adulthood, enjoying one final season before the finale of their childhoods.

Esperanza did not realize that, in her desperation and incoming melancholy, she had rested the hand that held the flame on one of the bales. She did not smell the smoke until it was far too late, until the flames danced at the corner of one of her eyes as it shot upward, sliding up the loft like an exotic snake, hissing as it spread to the bales there, popping and crackling over beams that had not seen a decent rain in months.

Turning to face the fire, the despair gnawing at her chest changed to horror. No single bucket of water could bring an end to this. If she acted fast, perhaps many buckets could. She ran – ran for the fields, ran for Papa, whom she knew was praying in the Chantry this afternoon.

The leaves crackling beneath her feet slid away, all at once, leaving behind a floor of wood. Her bare feet stuck out in front of her, her ankles clad in irons that were meant for an adult criminal. She sat, yet she was being carried.

Carried in a small cage meant for an animal, smelling of that animal’s droppings and final meal all at once.

She cried, tears running over her face as she grasped the bars before her. She couldn’t stand up or even squat; the cage was far too small. Through the metal bars she saw Gisela standing with her parents, clinging to her mother’s waist.

Esperanza saw Mama and Papa. Papa’s brown eyes were focused not on the cage, but the ground. Mama stared back when Esperanza stared, called out when Esperanza did, and wept with her.

Esperanza rested her teary gaze on Gisela’s thin form, and watched the girl until she could no longer see her anymore. The tears continued until she, at last, dropped to a floor that was made of stone and covered with ash, her helmet clattering as her head reached the ground.

The wind did not blow hard, but its relentless chill stung her cheeks and ears. Something black skidded across the floor, caught a puff of air, and floated upward, turning a single summersault. Then, it fell gently, coming to rest next to Esperanza’s face.

A single black crow’s feather.

“Walk in my footsteps,” the voice whispered, “until there is nothing left for you to mourn.”

The world went dark.

~*~

“Except for a mild case of frostbite and dehydration, there’s nothing wrong with her at all.” Esperanza recognized the voice of Markus, her personal physician. “Not even a bruise on her, which is surprising considering where she was found and how long she was missing.”

“Try smelling salts. Wake her.” Fenris’s voice sounded nasty, edging on something that sounded like violence and mourning all at once.

Esperanza forced her lips to move, though pushing breath and voice through them took a great deal of effort. “I’m awake. What happened?”

She could not yet open her eyes, yet she did not need to. She recognized the strong arms that suddenly grabbed her and pulled her to a warm chest clothed in a soft tunic. Fenris’s voice choked in his throat, an obvious and successful attempt to suppress a sob. It would not be proper for Fenris to cry in front of others, even in what was obviously an emotional situation.

“We were hoping you could answer that question.” Esperanza caught the uneasiness in Aveline’s voice even before she could see her. “You’ve been missing for two days.”

Forcing her eyes open, Esperanza raised her head from the comfort of Fenris’s shoulder. Her tongue seemed to stick to every surface within her own mouth, and it felt as though her eyelids were crusted and glued nearly shut with Maker-only-knew-what. “Two days?”

“You were found somewhere that you shouldn’t have been.” Fenris’s fingers strummed through her hair as he spoke. “How much do you recall of the morning that the demons attacked the Chantry workers?”

Esperanza tried to swallow, but there was nothing in her mouth to quench her parched throat. Saliva seemed to have departed a long time ago. “Where was I found?” She asked, her voice hoarse and strained. Within her body, her stomach quavered, fresh memory of the voice, Gisela, being captured by Templars – all of it seemed so real, and so recent, as if everything had happened moments before.

And yet it could not have happened. Esperanza had never known anyone named Gisela and she was most certainly not a mage.

What had Gisela called her?

Kastien.

She had never, in her life, known anyone named Kastien, nor had she burned down a single barn.

Wait.

Who had burned down a barn?

“It seems that the workers inadvertently opened up a sinkhole in the Chantry floor when they brought their machines inside.” Fenris said in a flat voice. “There is an entire network of rooms underneath the Chantry and probably Hightown as a whole. We haven’t had the time to explore it all. The rooms date from the time of the Tevinter Magisters’ ascent to the Golden City. We found you in one of those rooms.”

Anders had once told her about the day when the Templars first captured him and took him to the Circle in Ferelden, ripping him away from his family when he was still a boy. He had never mentioned a girl, or a cage, but the barn…

Was it possible?

Raising her head slowly, Esperanza turned to look at Aveline. Only one thought lay in her head – that of condemning affirmation. “Have you ever investigated a man by the name of Kastien?”

Aveline’s reaction to this question, on its own, told Esperanza everything she knew before Aveline herself spoke again. The color drained from Aveline’s face even as she made an attempt to stand up straighter. “I did – four years ago.” Her voice took on a very hard tone. “He had taken up an alias before he even came to live in Kirkwall. When I confronted him about it, he attacked me. He’s fortunate that I was in a forgiving mood and I didn’t have him arrested on the spot.” She drew a soft breath, her eyes widening. “How do you know that name? I never told anyone about that incident. I didn’t even report it within the guard.”

“I know the name because he gave it to me. I relived a portion of his childhood.” No. This was too easy and led to dark avenues filled with their own demons and malicious spirits. However, something that Aveline had said settled oddly upon her mind. “You didn’t report someone attacking you? You didn’t arrest them? Why? That’s not like you.”

Aveline stared directly at her. “Because he was one of your companions,” she replied in an uneasy voice. “Kastien Wexler was Anders’ birth name.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is Isabela, and Hawke and Varric find another reason why Kirkwall is so haunted.

Four

“Ghost stories are great fun,” said Varric as he steepled his fingers. “That is, until the ghost in the story turns out to be one of your friends.”

Aveline collapsed into a chair, uttering an exhausted sigh. Donnic took the stool next to her. Though both had shed their guard armor in favor of simple tunics and tights, both smelled still of leather, sweat, and armor polish.

“He wasn’t one of mine.” Fenris’s voice came out almost as a low growl. He continued to pace the length of the Viscountess’s formal sitting room, his path taking him past the rather large and ornate fireplace.

“Nor mine.” Sebastian placed a tome on an empty table near the fireplace. “The sisters at the Chantry unanimously recommended this book as a good place to start when dealing with a ghost. It’s an account of a haunting at Ostwick that occurred two hundred years ago. The ghosts were able to be purged without any magical intervention.”

Esperanza gave an acknowledging nod in Sebastian’s direction before returning her gaze to Aveline. “How did your shift go?”

“Other than the usual complaints of noise from this noble or trespassing from that one, it was surprisingly uneventful.” Aveline ran a hand over her forehead and then her fingers through her loose hair. “We even walked around inside the Chantry a bit, though we didn’t go into the sinkhole.”

“In most of the stories I’m familiar with, ghosts don’t really like to appear when they’re expected.” Varric turned his head, resting his almost lazy gaze on Aveline and Donnic. “You either have to force them out, or give them the upper hand on purpose.”

“That’s not what happened in Bartrand’s old house,” Fenris pointed out.

“No,” Varric replied, “but that was an unusual case. That place was lousy with ghosts. The Chantry has just one.”

“Part of me still wants to push against this whole matter,” Esperanza said with a heavy sigh. Even though this meeting had the comfort and familiarity of times gone by – after all, everyone but Merril, Anders, Bethany, and Isabela were present – she still felt somewhat out of sorts as the only person in a nightgown and a shawl. “How do we know that this ghost is Anders? After all, your guardsman saw Orsino in Hightown, didn’t she, Aveline?”

“I’m not going to lie.” Varric looked over at Esperanza. “I’ve walked past the Chantry a few times over the last few years, and each time, I felt like I’d drunk a bad batch of the Hanged Man’s cheapest. I always chalked it up to bad memories and such and just let it be.”

“Yes.” Fenris narrowed his eyes at Varric. “But the two of you were the best of friends, weren’t you? Anders wouldn’t attack his pal, would he?”

“Blondie and I were drinking buddies.” Varric waved a hand idly. “We confided a lot in one another. I let him crash in my room a few times and I fed him a few meals. So what? I felt sorry for the guy.”

“So, in short, you were friends.” Sebastian crossed his arms as he spoke.

“You want me to go into the Chantry? Fine.” Something hard and unfamiliar crept into the dwarf’s voice. “I’d be stupid to think that some ghost version of Anders wouldn’t harm me as quickly as he would the Viscountess. This is Anders we’re talking about. Mage plus passenger, and who knows if that passenger is still tagging along. I’m not going alone.”

“Fine.” Aveline’s lips tightened in a grimace. “I’m in. Tomorrow is my night off. Donnic will post at the door so that we’re left alone.”

Donnic nodded his head in silent acknowledgment.

Esperanza sat up straighter. Even with a solid week of rest and nourishing food, she still felt out of sorts, but she refused to show it. “I think I have sufficiently recovered. I think my presence could probably be enough to draw him out of hiding again. After all, I did kill him. I’ll be there.”

Shaking his head lightly, Fenris murmured, “Arguing with you would be futile. I may as well come along and see that he doesn’t harm you.”

“We are so eager to rush in with our weapons drawn that we haven’t touched the heart of the matter.” Sebastian’s arms were still crossed. “Are we assuming that Anders is the only ghost? Why has he come back to this world? Is it as simple as his desire for mages to be free of the Chantry, or something far simpler?”

“Perhaps he just misses all of us.” The voice came from one of the windows.

“Isabela.” Esperanza spoke even as she turned around, smiling as she saw the Rivaini woman crouched in one of the sitting room’s wide windows. Her mood brightened ever so slightly at the realization that Isabela must have had to elude the patrolling guards below the window before scaling two stories of ivy-covered trellises.

“Hey, Rivaini.” Varric raised a hand in greeting, a wide smile on his own face. “I thought you were sailing the high seas in your ship.”

“I was.” Isabela’s voice sounded almost bored as she drew one of her daggers, making slow work of cleaning and examining her nails. “Thought I’d drop in and visit some old friends. What’s this about Anders being a ghost?”

Esperanza cleared her throat uncomfortably and stood up. “We’re not entirely sure that this is the case. Don’t you want to come inside? You’ll catch cold.” Her gaze ran down Isabela’s bare legs, which didn’t seem to bear any goosebumps.

“Aww.” Isabela jumped up, smiling as she sheathed her dagger. “You’re too good to me, Hawke. Always looking out for me. Got any liquor in this foreboding fortress of yours?” She began to make a path toward the table that held a number of bottles of various spirits.

“Help yourself.” Esperanza exchanged dubious glances with Fenris.

“It doesn’t surprise me if Anders is a ghost, you know.” Isabela took two mugs in one hand and a bottle of fine rum in the other. “You all sort of strung him along, treated him like garbage, then stabbed him in the back. Literally. It was a bit like kicking a puppy.”

“That’s awfully sanctimonious, coming from you,” Fenris said, narrowing his eyes.

“I treated him like a person, at least.” Isabela winked at Fenris. “I’m not the religious sort, but did any of you have him burned properly? Put him on a pyre, said prayers and such? It tends to make someone really mad when you don’t send them to their god in a proper fashion.” She filled both of the mugs with rum, then carried both as she moved toward Varric.

“I can’t believe I’m actually saying this,” said Sebastian, “but Isabela has a point. Did you have him cremated, Esperanza?”

“No, I didn’t.” Something edged at the pit of her stomach and left a smoldering pain there. “All of the bodies from the rebellion were laid out at the Gallows for a day. If they went unclaimed, they were buried outside of the city.” She raised a hand for silence as Sebastian opened his mouth to speak. “Let me finish. Most of the unclaimed corpses were elves. We decided that it would be better to take care of all of them at once rather than risk further inflaming our relations with the local Dalish by burning them all.”

“Ooh, a mass grave.” Isabela handed one of the drinks to Varric. “There’s your problem. Go get a shovel, look for a skeleton wearing big feathered pauldrons, Sebastian will say a few words, and set Anders on fire. Problem solved.”

“I doubt it will be that simple, Isabela,” Esperanza said with a sigh. In her mind’s eye, she was already clad in rough clothes, digging up bones with a trowel. “Let’s not waste time desecrating a mass grave when we could be making matters worse.”

“We could turn one angry ghost into ten or more.” Sebastian nodded his head at Esperanza. “Tomorrow evening, then. The square should be clear by eighth bell.”

“Fine.” Isabela rolled her eyes. “Don’t listen to me, as usual.” In one single gulp, she consumed her entire tumbler of rum. “Where are we going?”

~*~

“Silver bolts.” Varric set a long, thin case on a broken section of the Chantry barricade, and opened it slowly. Within, a number of brand-new, polished bolts, as well as several arrows, glimmered in the faint moonlight. “Bought some silver arrows for you, Choir Boy. I charged it to the city.”

“That’s…very nice, Varric. Thank you.” Sebastian cast an uneasy glance in Esperanza’s direction.

“The city can’t afford it,” said Fenris in a firm voice as he frowned.

“Kirkwall can’t afford for a ghost to be running around killing its guards and attacking its prominent citizens.” With a satisfying series of clicks, Varric loaded a bolt into Bianca.

With nimble fingers, Sebastian picked up an arrow, scrutinized it with a knowledgeable gaze, and added it to his quiver. “It can’t hurt,” he said with a shrug, taking a few more from the box. “I’ve also brought holy water and oil, both of which were mentioned in the Ostwick book I lent you, Hawke.”

Esperanza gave Sebastian a single nod before returning her attention to the open Chantry doors. She stood next to Aveline, Donnic, and Fenris, all of which stood with weapons drawn.

“How far are you going to go in?” In addition to his weapon, Donnic held his shield at the ready.

“As far as we need to.” Esperanza looked back at Fenris. “What can we expect from the rooms inside of the sinkhole?”

“The builders put in some support beams in the forward rooms, but the new Grand Cleric asked them to leave the rest alone.” Fenris scowled, his voice rumbling. “Another delay when we’re already behind schedule. At any rate, not much of the area has been explored.”

“Danger and unknowns. Sounds like fun.” Isabela stepped up next to the four warriors. “What are we waiting for? It’s not as though Anders is a stranger. Let’s just pretend that the Chantry ruins are his old clinic and just go in.”

Esperanza took a step forward, staring into the semi-darkness of the ruins. Unlike the early morning hours during which her last encounter had taken place, on this night, the moon dipped in and out of the cover of clouds, preferring to hide itself behind a curtain of darkness with only the peak of its crescent looking out at the world below. The darkness placed them at a disadvantage.

“Whatever we do, wherever we go, we stick together.” Esperanza looked back at her comrades, spending a moment gazing at each of their faces. “No slipping off to explore or to look for treasure.”

“I think that remark was directed at me,” murmured Isabela.

“Right.” Aveline nodded her head. She continued to stare at the shadows within the Chantry, her jaw tense, her eyes narrowed. “We go in, look around, we leave. Then I become convinced that I’m going mad and retire from the guard.”

“You aren’t mad.” Donnic’s voice seemed unusually soft, as if he were far away from the group rather than standing among them. “We know what we saw.”

“We move slowly.” Esperanza raised her sword, resting it against one of her shoulders. “Varric, Sebastian – cover us as we go in.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.” Varric hefted Bianca, crouching as he slipped behind Esperanza.

Sebastian flattened himself against the opposite door, silently fitting an arrow into his bow. His lips moved, perhaps in quiet prayer, but Esperanza heard no words coming from his mouth.

The warriors moved as one – Esperanza leading, with Aveline and Fenris just behind. Isabela slipped into the shadows and stayed there, her fingertips trailing along the broken walls. Varric and Sebastian found cover where they could, or otherwise stayed to the walls, moving with Isabela. The heavy plate armor on the trio of warriors prevented them from walking in complete silence; the archers and Isabela, however, had no such encumbrances.

The moments slipped by as the moon continued to dance into view and then back into hiding. They progressed across the Chantry floor, up toward the sinkhole itself, which stood where the large statues of the Maker and Andraste once had.

It was larger than Esperanza had imagined. Even when Fenris described the sinkhole to her, she had pictured a small hole, not a pit, certainly not large enough to fit the Hawke family home in Lothering, with a drop to a dark floor below them that promised at least minor injuries to ankles and legs. Fortunately, the workers had left a number of sturdy ladders behind, each leaning against a sound patch of floor.

Esperanza held up a hand, a gesture that called a silent halt to their march. Raising her head, she strained her ears, trying to hear any sound, any sort of indication that they were not alone in the room. Moments passed. Afar off, a dog barked. The wind blew. The silence that followed was almost painful, causing her ears to throb for want of any other sound but her own breathing and that of her companions.

“Fuck this.” Isabela stepped out of the shadows, sliding her daggers back into their protective sheathes. “Anders!” Raising her head, she stared up at the few remaining beams, then up at the sky itself. “It’s me, Isabela. Look, if it’s really you, I want you to listen to me. I know that you’re pretty irritated at Hawke for killing you and all. I don’t blame you. I mean, she can be a great chum, but when she gets into those moods of hers, watch out. Well, you didn’t watch out, and here you are.”

Lowering her shield, Aveline uttered a noise that sounded like a cross between a growl and a hiss.

“Isabela –“ Esperanza began, her voice no louder than a whisper.

“Well, at least I’m talking to him, not creeping about like a bloody cat.” Isabela returned her attention to the ruins as a whole, her gaze constantly moving even as she did. “Look, Anders, you have to stop this nonsense. We – at least me, anyway, and probably Varric; definitely Bethany – we were your friends. We can see that you can…ah…have your eternal rest. Just appear, or do whatever you ghosts do, and tell us what you really want. We’ll sort it out for you.”

“Do you hear that?” Lowering his bow, Sebastian stood erect, his head tilted to one side.

“Hear what?” Fenris lowered the point of his sword.

Sebastian’s gaze turned toward a broken staircase at the far end of the room. “Music. A lute.” Holding one of the silver arrows in one hand and his bow in the other, he started toward the staircase. “I think I know that song.”

Again, Esperanza strained her ears, but heard nothing but the shifting of their bodies and the wind moving through the ruins. “I don’t hear anything,” she confessed, frowning as she watched Sebastian.

Varric lowered Bianca. “Maybe some noble can’t sleep and is practicing at his window.”

“Then we would all be able to hear it,” Esperanza pointed out as she still strained to hear anything but the sound of their conversation.

“Or at least, I would,” Fenris said as he stepped slightly away from Esperanza and Aveline.

“Sebastian, stop!” Aveline’s voice echoed as she suddenly reached out, grabbing his arm. Panic filled her voice. “Stop right where you are. Has it occurred to you that there shouldn’t be lute music in the center of a haunted ruin in the middle of the night?”

“It’s my father’s music.” Sebastian tugged at his arm, not looking back at Aveline as he tried to take a step forward. “He wrote that song to woo Mother to marry him. He always played it when –“ His words broke off, hanging in the cold air, dangling and forgotten. Slowly, he turned to look back at the group, pure horror written upon his handsome features. After a silent moment of realization, he dropped his head, blue eyes closing, and began to murmur, “Merciful Maker, whose hand shaped the world, hear my prayer. Be with us in this place that you have forsaken…”

“Stay with us,” said Aveline, her voice becoming calmer and more gentle. Very slowly, she released Sebastian’s arm, then patted it in an affectionate manner. “Do whatever you need to do to resist whatever he throws at us.”

“’Whatever he throws at us?’” Isabela crossed her arms, her lips turning down in a disappointed sort of frown. “So far, he’s played an old song that only Sebastian can hear and watched us wet our armor. I’ve seen better out of blood mages in broad daylight.”

With a mighty crack that split the near-silence within the ruins, a patch of the shattered ceiling tore free from the remaining support beams, raining down onto Isabela with a sudden crash.

“Isabela!” Esperanza crouched over, leaving her sword on the ground as she fought to tear the debris off of the collapsed pirate.

Kneeling quickly, Fenris tore away a large, charred fragment of wood. Isabela stared up at him, her eyes glassy, her face covered with blood.

“Now, that’s more like it,” she mumbled.

Aveline swiftly knelt down next to Isabela, brushing her dark hair from her face. “Nobody asked you to taunt him,” she said with a heavy sigh, holding up three fingers before Isabela’s face. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Um, a lot.” Blood began to stain Isabela’s headscarf. “Think I’ll take a bit of a nap now.”

“No, you won’t.” Bending over, Aveline swiftly scooped Isabela into her arms, the nearby debris rattling and splintering as it was further disturbed. “Someone take my shield. We need to get her to a physician quickly. Isabela, stay awake. Do everything you can to stay awake.”

“Thought I was already asleep.” The bloodstain on Isabela’s headscarf deepened as the skin around her eyes began to darken. “With you sweeping me off my feet…must be a dream.”

“We’ll take her back to the Keep.” Snatching up Aveline’s shield, Esperanza started toward the door, her footsteps crunching in the snow as she did so. “My physician should still be awake.”

It was then that Varric’s voice, said in quiet tones, seemed to break through the sounds of movement and armor rattling and jingling. “Would now be a good time to mention that Sebastian is no longer with us?”

“Shit.” Heartbeat rising in her throat, Esperanza stopped in her tracks, pivoting on her toes as she gave the room a glance. She had half-expected to see Sebastian climbing that half-broken staircase, clutching what was left of the banister in order to make his ascent. The long shadows did not reveal him, nor could Esperanza see him moving up the stairs or walking on any of the upper floors.

“I’ll go with them.” Before Esperanza could open her mouth to call out for Sebastian, Fenris was at her side and taking Aveline’s shield from her hand. “Find Sebastian and get out of here. Meet me back at the Keep.”

“Right.” Esperanza nodded at Fenris, and immediately turned her attention to Varric. “Let’s go.”

“I bet he got curious about the sinkhole.” Drawing Bianca again, Varric moved slowly across the floor, crouching slightly as he did so, preferring the shadows rather than moving across the open floor. “Sebastian! Hey, Choir Boy.”

With a single glance back at Aveline, Isabela, and Fenris as they retreated out of the doors, Esperanza walked quickly and as quietly as she possibly could toward Varric, then moved next to him once she reached him. Her sword remained firmly in her hand, drawn and at the ready. “Sebastian?”

Stepping up to one of the ladders at the edge of the sinkhole, Varric squatted onto the shattered ground, glanced over the edge, then sat upright. “He can’t have gone far. We’d be able to see him if he made it upstairs.”

“Right.” Esperanza slid her sword back in its scabbard. “I’ll go first down the ladder. Cover me.”

“Go.” Crouching on the floor again, Varric aimed Bianca down at the black floor beneath them. “Quick.”

As Esperanza took hold of the ladder and swung herself onto it, she thought of what was going unsaid. This could be futile. This could be in vain. Sebastian could be deliberately hiding, deliberately avoiding them for some unknown reason. Or he could be in the clutches of some force that had deliberately divided the companions, one that had taken control of his mind and given him complete leave of his senses.

Though Sebastian had matured over the past few years, Esperanza did remember a time when he was more driven by his impulses and instincts than rational thought and fact. Perhaps this could have been an indicator that those aspects of his younger days had not completely vanished from his personality.

Perhaps not.

The air within the chamber below the Chantry floor tasted like the Deep Roads – stale and moldy all at once. Wrinkling her nose as her boots, at last, touched the floor, Esperanza’s gaze immediately fell upon what appeared to be an unlit torch sitting in an ancient stone sconce. Drawing a flint and tinder out of one of the pouches at her belt, she gave the darkness around her a critical gaze, her eyes straining for any sign of any shape, human or otherwise.

She saw nothing. She heard nothing. There was nothing alive in this chamber, and hadn’t been since the workers put the support beams along the walls.

“It’s safe,” she whispered loudly, unsure that Varric could hear her. Moving toward the torch, she took it from its resting place and began to work on lighting it as Varric descended the ladder.

As he reached the floor, Varric bent over, his gloved fingers stroking the dust lightly. “Human men have been here, but most of the workers were human. You know me, I’m a shit tracker. Too bad we’re looking for Sebastian, or Sebastian could tell us if one of those pairs of boots belonged to him.” Standing upright, Varric drew Bianca out of her strap. “Sebastian! You down here, friend?”

With a sudden hiss and a sputter, the torch caught fire at last. Esperanza tucked her flint and tinder back into its pouch, and turned, raising the torch high above her head as the flames grew bigger and the shadows grew smaller.

The room before them was revealed in the golden light of the torch.

“What in the Void…?” Varric murmured, his eyes growing wide.

Before them lay mounds of red dust, each forming long lines interspersed with fragments of rock. Upon the walls, which had been painted red, a number of indentions had been carved.

“What is this place?” Esperanza bent over, her fingertips gracing the surface of one of the red dust piles. Lifting her hand to her nose, she sniffed the dust, then sneezed. “This is rust. This was something metal, something old and badly damaged.”

“And vanished into time immaterial.” Varric shook his head. “It’s a shame. Let’s check the rest of the rooms, and be quick about it.” Uneasiness crept into his voice, “I don’t want to stay here long. You know what being underground does to me.”

Two openings led out of the room; the footprints led to only one of them. Still holding the torch high, Esperanza paused only briefly to study the way that the red paint had been placed upon the stones, the unevenness of the strokes and the way that they did not overlap in places, revealing bare grey stone beneath. Then, drawing a deep breath, she moved into the next chamber, stopping before a set of wide stone steps that led downward toward a tiled floor.

As she moved the torch from right to left and back again, she drew a sharp breath. The walls were covered with tiles, each bearing small cracks but none badly damaged despite their apparent age. The tiles on the floor formed an intricate design of reds, yellows, and greens, all swirling in a dizzying fashion.

The ones on the walls, however, formed the shape of a rampant dragon.

“Now, that’s Tevinter art if I ever saw it.” Stepping toward the mosaic, Varric touched it lightly with his fingers. “Though, I haven’t seen anything like this in Kirkwall. This room had a special purpose to the Tevinters that lived here, and judging by the condition of these tiles, I’d say that it wasn’t for everyday use.”

“Mm.” Esperanza crouched down to closer examine the tiles below their feet. “A temple to one of the Old Gods, perhaps?”

“Never seen one like this before.” Varric turned back to her, shaking his head. “Usually the Tevinters keep their temples to the Old Gods fairly simple, with a statue or two and a few offering bowls. Most of the big temples were replaced with Chantries after Andraste’s death. This was something different.”

Standing up, her eyes came to rest on the figure of the dragon once again. Some of the tiles had been cut quite small, some in various sizes and shades so slightly different than the one next to it. All of these techniques and care caused the dragon to look so very real and so very angry. As she stepped toward the head of the beast, she caught a strange scent in the air, that of freshly-butchered meat, of blood still fresh and flesh exposed to air for the first time. The dragon’s great eyeballs, both white and red and strangely wet, seemed almost alive.

“Let’s keep looking for Sebastian.” Closing her eyes for a brief moment, Esperanza forced herself to turn her head away from the dragon’s face. “We can come back to study these rooms another time. Trust me, we will.”

“Remember to invite me.” Varric’s voice sounded somewhat regretful as they both began to head for the end of the chamber, where another staircase led into darkness almost palatable and almost thick with stale, cold air.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Esperanza is forced to witness Anders' continued quest for supernatural vengeance while trapped underneath the Chantry floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains rape and major character death.

Five

There was something wrong in the next room.

Stepping down the staircase, her torch held high, Esperanza knew that something was amiss; there was no questioning this instinct, for it simply was. It was as plain to her as her name, her knowledge of Fenris’s love for her, or the fact that Bethany was her sister. It was a statement of fact, one that she could not prove, but one, though not conceived in pure emotion, existed with a mixture of revulsion and fear.

“Uh…I…Hawke, I’m beginning to think that Sebastian’s not down here. Don’t ask me where he’s gone. He didn’t have a torch of his own, so I’m not certain that he would have made it this far without one.” The eloquence in Varric’s tones did not exist. His words were clipped short, his accent harsh, and his hands seemed to grip the ancient stone railing on one side of the stairs.

“Ngh.” Esperanza turned her head slightly away from the center of the room as she reached the end of the staircase. She could not look fully at the room, this bare stone room that contained no decorations, no paintings on the walls, and no unusual markings carved anywhere. In the center of the chamber lay some sort of great, stone pit, lined with bricks but otherwise free of decoration.

The pit.

Something was in the pit.

No, Esperanza could see the bottom of the pit from her vantage point – it was empty, or at least, filled with nothing but dust and a lot of it. Not the red dust from the chamber through which she and Varric had entered, but something grey instead.

Was it the dust itself that was the problem? Did the dust cause Esperanza to feel as though she wanted to drop her torch and flee for the ladder and the certain freedom it promised? She could not be certain. She knew so little of the supernatural and the magical, but she knew that she had never heard of magical dust – except, perhaps, lyrium dust, but no, this was neither blue nor red.

“Esperanza.” It had been years since Varric had called her by her given name. “There’s a Veil tear here. A big one. We have to go. We can’t stay here.” His fingers plucked at the sleeve of her tunic at a point in her armor where two pieces did not meet fully.

She couldn’t see it – and she was aware that Varric couldn’t, either. Yet, both could feel its presence with their bodies and minds as certainly as they could see one another. Her hair blew in a wind that should not have been down in such a place, but, alongside that fact, the hair on her arms seemed also to bend to its spectral touch.

This should not have been possible. She wore a tunic with long sleeves and a breastplate with armguards. Wind could not penetrate one, let alone both.

Varric was right. They shouldn’t be there. Something horrible had happened in this room, something that happened so long ago that no evidence remained of the crimes, whatever they were.

“You’re right.” Esperanza walked backwards, refusing to turn her back to the pit, keeping her sword between her body and the room itself. “Let’s go.”

It was difficult to climb the stairs with her back to the door, but she took her time. She kept both of her eyes fixed on the center of the room as she wondered if this invisible Veil tear would suddenly shimmer into their reality, spitting out demons or whatever spirits the Fade might reject.

Minutes passed.

Her boots moved upward, right over left. Her gauntleted hands remained clenched around the hilt of her greatsword and the torch.

Nothing happened. The chill within her armor did not recede; in fact, it set her to shivering as her skin could no longer withstand its gentle assault. Part of her longed to remove her plate armor, which certainly must have been making the issue far worse, the dragonbone plates absorbing and holding the cold close to her fabric-covered skin.

The other part knew that to do such a thing, to remove her armor in a hostile environment, would be one of the stupidest things she had ever done.

“Hawke,” Varric said, his voice no louder than a whisper. “Do you hear that?”

One final step, left over right, and Esperanza’s left boot rested within the room with the dragon picture.

Gentle music, no louder than a soft breeze, tickled her ears. The sound of a lute played with an expert hand washed slowly over her soul as the strings evoked an air of soft seduction.

“I hear it.” She did not whisper. She did not recognize the song, and she knew that the sound simply should not be here. Her teeth chattered even as she tensed her jaw in a vain attempt to still them. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Right.” Esperanza heard Varric step toward the far door even as he spoke. The sound of a bolt sliding into Bianca sounded like a clap of thunder.

Turning on her toes, she started to turn her back to the room with the Veil tear, unsaid prayers rising to her lips even as she did so. She started to whisper the Maker’s name, hoping that it would stave off the ghastly cold that moved, like groping hands, down her limbs.

She turned, and found herself surrounded by hedges.

 _Fine company you keep._ The voice was there again, in her ear – that voice that had spoken to her in the Chantry before she went missing for three days. It caressed her ear in such a way that she cried out in revulsion from its slimy, chilled touch.

 _Hypocrite. Hypocrite. Hypocrite. You once asked me too many questions and turned me aside when you didn’t like the answers._

Esperanza was cold, but no longer from ghostly hands and touches. She found that someone had taken her armor and dressed her instead in a corset, stockings, and Orlesian high-heeled shoes.

 _You didn’t ask him enough._

“You know the rules, lads,” a voice called out from outside of the hedges, sounding so happy, so youthful, and so utterly terrifying. “First to get through the maze gets to take her where she stands. Inside this maze we have a rare treat – the virgin bastard daughter of one of my father’s dearest friends, ripe for the picking, barely old enough to be marriageable by Starkhaven law.”

The words caused Esperanza to sob as she sought to cover her near-nakedness. Snowflakes showered her shoulders and her fine shoes, horrible things with heels so high that she teetered even as she shivered, and bows so large that each time she turned around, desperately looking for an exit from this place, they rubbed together and threatened to trip her.

“Go!” The voice echoed through the evening air and through the thick snow.

 _You never once asked yourself what he was running from._

She cowered for a moment, covering her large ears as her eyes fell upon the place where the hedges opened to a passageway. Her heart pounded in her throat, a bird caught in a cage, frantically beating its wings against the gilded bars. She might run into one of the lords that now laughed and swore at one another as they sought to find her, to rape her right upon the snowy ground beneath her high-heeled shoes.

Or she might find her freedom.

Gasping with the possibility, she lurched toward the opening, her arms open wide as she slipped on the cobblestones and the snow. She ran, her ankles wobbling, cracking, threatening to give way beneath her.

They were drunk. They were lost. She could practically smell the liquor on their breath as they stumbled around the same dead ends over and over, their laughter like hyenas circling to rip forgotten flesh from a long-dead carcass.

Next to her, the bushes shook violently as two men began to shout at one another in Orlesian. Skin slapped against skin. A bone crunched. One of them yelped.

She turned right, then left again. She had been dragged here, blindfolded, taken from her aunt’s home in the middle of the night. They may have been poor. She could not read. She knew mazes. She loved mazes. How much she loved to walk through the mazes in the city gardens on the days that the common people were allowed the privilege. How much she loved the particular maze made of rose bushes fully in bloom, the thorns awaiting any who might be so careless as to bump into them - sharp, horrible, and unforgiving all at once.

She knew that she might never see the roses again.

With each passing moment, the avenues grew wider. The bushes seemed to yawn into the distance, green becoming gray dusted with white. Her fingers numbed as they traced the wall of leaves, and the stinging in her cheeks faded into chill. She could no longer feel her face, but her freedom felt palatable. She breathed it in with each gasping breath that left her thin body as a cloud of smoke.

Yes. This had to be it. She was certain that she was near the outside wall of the maze. The exit had to be within her grasp. Three of the noble lords were mocking a fourth as he vomited his fine dinner in one of the dead ends. They didn’t see her. She wouldn’t dare sob, or even breathe loudly enough for them to hear, though nothing in Thedas would mask the tapping of her obscene shoes, the horrible heels upon snow and cobblestones, as her eyes took in the very sight of her freedom.

Two columns, one on each side of a break in the hedges.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

She opened her arms wide as she ran, ran for her freedom. She would see her aunt again. She would be home in time to put her cousins to bed, all eight of them, and then Auntie would warm her before the hearth. Auntie would hug her and tell her that she would be safe, and this would never happen again. They would leave Starkhaven and the Alienage and run, run free of this place, of starvation, of the Free Marches, far away.

She ran directly into one of them.

She was far shorter than he, so that her head collided with his chest.

Heart rising into her throat, she stumbled backward, away from him, away from the possibility of her freedom. Freedom itself faded away, away into the cold, which embraced her as she fell fully on the cobblestones, arms splayed to break her fall.

Esperanza lifted her head and looked him in the eye. She would have never dared do such a thing if he were to pass her on the street. For an Alienage elf to look any of the noble lords in the face would have been an affront worthy of whipping.

But she had to know.

She wanted to know who he was.

Who was he, the one that would harm her?

Prince Sebastian.

“What do you know?” When he spoke, she knew his voice immediately. He was the one that, moments before, had announced the contest. “Since all of you lads were far too drunk to find the prize, I found her for you.” His strange blue eyes narrowed as a cruel grin spread completely over his lush lips. “Your loss, I suppose.”

His hand rested on his trouser laces as he threw himself fully on her, crushing her against the ground, her skin cut and scraped by the cobblestones. She screamed as another hand closed around her throat, fine Antivan leather against frozen and tortured and tender skin.

The world flashed red and white around her, and the last thing she saw, as both faded to black, was the strange blue eyes opened wide, the soul behind them filled with rage and blind lust.

“Andraste’s flaming ass.”

Esperanza blinked hard and staggered, trying her best to clear her vision. She could see nothing in the darkness, a void so complete and total that it pressed hard against her eyeballs.

“I can’t see, Varric.” Leaning against a wall, Esperanza clutched her sword desperately. She wanted to sheath it. She needed both of her hands to steady herself. Yet, for the moment, she found it impossible to lift.

“Neither can I…I…Agh…” Varric sounded as though he was in pain. “Did you drop…drop your torch? Gah…”

She had. This was the reason that she could not see. Panting hard in the darkness, Esperanza grunted as she lifted her sword, sheathed it, then squatted down, hands flitting across the floor as she sought the torch.

She found instead, the shock and surprise of warmth. Fingers. Varric’s fingers that grasped her own and held them tightly.

“Varric, I’ll get us out of here.” Esperanza felt reason returning to her mind, even though her entire body ached and shivered all at once. “Can you stand?”

“Yeah…I need a drink…Bad.” She heard the sound of Varric stumbling as he fought to stand. “Lead me.”

Pressing a hand against the wall next to them, she started toward the opposite end of the room, toward the pale light of the moon, which filtered its way through the top of the sinkhole. She held Varric’s hand as they progressed through the rooms, through the dust and the rust, and up toward the ladders.

As they moved, Esperanza felt Varric’s fingers trembling in her grasp. When they reached the ladders, she turned to look at him, shocked to see a level of discomfort in her friend that she had never before seen. Not even in Bartrand’s house had he appeared so shaken. His brown eyes were wide, and even in the low light of the moon, Esperanza could see the paleness of his face.

She wanted to ask him what he had seen.

She wanted him to tell her that she wasn’t going mad.

The ladder stretched upward and she climbed it, not waiting, trying to push thoughts from her mind of the unfortunate, desperate elf whose life she was forced to witness.

And Sebastian.

Could he?

No. He had mentioned a past filled with sin, but none of what Esperanza had seen seemed like him at all.

Her fingers pressed into the broken Chantry floor as she crawled off of the ladder. Stepping away from it, she rose, drew her sword, and looked down at Varric as he struggled to reach her.

The wind tickled the back of her neck, and brought with it the return of the gentle lute music.

“Shit.” Varric’s voice sounded gravelly as he made his way to the Chantry floor, to his feet, and as he drew Bianca. “Fuck you, Anders. Fuck you and your fucking music. You want to throw a ceiling at me too? Go right ahead. At least let me take a fucking shot at you first. It’s only fair.”

“Anders,” a voice moaned.

Esperanza turned to face the speaker, and found herself staring through him.

A slim, young man wearing what appeared to be apprentice’s robes faced them. She could see only his head, shoulders, and part of one arm; the rest faded into the air itself, into the silvery moonlight and beyond the abilities of her sight.

“I am not supposed to be here,” the young man said softly. “He brought me here to stay with him. He said he was lonely.”

Varric stepped past Esperanza, Bianca still drawn. “Why did Anders bring you here? I thought you died at Ostagar?”

“Do you know one another?” Esperanza looked between the ghost and Varric.

“I was killed by darkspawn at Ostagar, yes,” the ghost replied. “I was supposed to go to the Maker.” He shook his head, his face growing softer, with round, sorrow-filled eyes. “Anders brought me here instead. He’s not himself. He’s more powerful than he was in life. He’s angry, too. So angry.”

“We gathered that.” Varric held up a hand toward Esperanza, a gesture that suggested that he wanted her to remain quiet. “Can you talk him down? Can you ask him to go to the Maker and be at peace?”

“There will be no peace for Anders.” The young man shook his head. “Not with what he has done. Not with what he has become.”

The lute music silenced, in mid-note, as if an invisible hand had clapped over the strings. Then, the wind blew, filling the air with a rushing noise that caused Esperanza to turn away from the ghost and toward the rest of the Chantry.

The air filled with papers, scraps of parchment, bills, notices, and ornate envelopes. Some floated gently to the floor, while others took their time winding through the air, their torn and yellowed edges fluttering as they made their way to the ground.

From the darkness into the moonlight, a figure fell from the highest balcony, arms spread wide as the air rushed past him. His face and head met with the floor first, a sickening, wet sound accompanying the spilling of the contents of his skull.

Sebastian’s blood splattered the many papers, running over ink and words and numbers.

Esperanza screamed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day after Sebastian's death, Esperanza is left trying to understand the reasons behind Anders' revenge.

Chapter Six

Esperanza's bloodstained fingers slid across the floor as she snatched up a notice. "Another elf woman. She was married with four children. Found raped and murdered. Her husband offered ten sovereigns in reward for any information leading to the arrest of her murderer."

"To a family of Alienage elves, ten sovereigns would have been their life savings," Aveline said quietly. Moving to stand next to Sebastian's corpse again, she sighed as she knelt down next to him.

"There was a serial rapist on the loose in Starkhaven, one that targeted elves of every social class. The Prince's youngest son was known for having a taste for elves. The nobles looked the other way." Esperanza chose a sealed letter next, wax crumbling as she opened it. She bared her teeth as her eyes filled with words concerning evidence and testimonies and names. "He apparently has a son, as well, with the daughter of an Imperial Senator. This is a reminder of a bribe. If he didn't pay, the Senator promised to tell the White Divine."

"What he did to those women…" Fenris made a noise of disgust. "All these years – he dared look me in the eyes. He dared call me a friend." He clenched his hands into fists, turning away from the corpse.

"I've read enough." Closing her eyes, Esperanza knelt on the Chantry floor, the knees of her armor red from Sebastian's blood. "Let me guess, Aveline: there was no evidence of foul play."

"We're baffled that he made it up there," replied Aveline. "He could not have reached the back stairwells, and the front ones are nearly destroyed. We had to use a ladder to get up there at all."

"Then rule it a suicide." Opening her eyes, Esperanza placed the papers on the floor.

Raising her eyebrows, Aveline said, "Whatever we think of him, we both know that Sebastian wouldn't have killed himself. We both know who's responsible."

"Are you honestly going to write in your report that Sebastian was murdered by a man who has been dead for over a year?" Incredulousness and exhaustion filled Esperanza's voice. "You know what? Forget it. Viscountess or no, I'm the wrong person to tell you how to do your job. I'm going to go back to the Keep now." Her gaze fell on Sebastian. "All I want is my breakfast and the rest of the day in bed."

It was then that a shadow fell across Sebastian's corpse, and a voice spoke in a low-pitched Orlesian accent. "What has happened here?"

Esperanza took a deep breath, drawing courage into her lungs even before she turned to face the speaker. "Your Grace," she said in the politest voice that she could muster with so little sleep. "We did not expect you until next week."

She stood up straight, turning to face Grand Cleric Deulane. The woman stood tall, with broad shoulders, short white hair, and a plain black cloak over a more gilded version of the white Orlesian Chantry robes.

"Perhaps the Maker has sped my step with good reason, then. Brother Sebastian, I assume?" Stepping alongside Esperanza, moving away from her own Templar guard, Deulane stretched out her hand, murmuring what sounded like the Prayer for the Dead in Orlesian.

Esperanza dropped her own head, closing her eyes as she waited for the prayer to end. She did not know a single word of Orlesian, but the pauses in the prayer were the same as they were in the common tongue.

As the prayer ended, silence filled the Chantry ruin once again, but this moment of peace was fleeting. Esperanza sensed that Deulane had moved away from her, and heard the soft footfalls of the Grand Cleric's slippers.

"I would assume that someone has an explanation for the death of this holy man?" Deulane said in a quiet yet firm voice.

"He was not as holy as we all believed, Your Grace," Fenris said, his own voice remaining gravelly.

Esperanza opened her eyes. She saw that Deulane had moved near the sinkhole, bent down, and now gathered some of the sheets of paper that scattered across the broken floor.

"By your leave, Your Grace, I would like to prepare a full report concerning the events that happened here," said Esperanza. "I require time to conduct interviews with several witnesses. Not to mention the fact that I have been here since eighth bell last evening. Serrah Leto and I must see that the day to day operations of Kirkwall are attended to."

Standing up, Deulane rearranged the papers that she held in her gloved hands, slowly shuffling them into an orderly pile. "The Chantry will see to it that Brother Sebastian is given a proper funeral," she said without looking up from her work.

"Begging your pardon, Your Grace." Fenris's jaw tightened as he spoke. "The evidence in your hands should show that he is not deserving of that."

"Is that so?" Her brown eyes moved from the papers to Fenris's face. "We'll let the Maker pass judgment when Sebastian arrives at his side." The inquisitive gaze moved between the faces of Fenris, Esperanza, Aveline, and Donnic. "In the meantime, you all look as though you could use some rest. I regret meeting you under these circumstances, Viscountess Hawke."

"Yes, well…" Esperanza found herself at a loss for words for a moment, her gaze moving to the faces of her companions. "I will send word for you in the evening."

"I will look for that word, then. I keep late hours." Deulane gave a small bow of her head. "Maker bless and keep you safe."

~*~

"I feel sick inside."

It was the only way that Esperanza could properly express the amalgamation of thoughts that raced about her head, colliding with conflicting emotions that left her wondering whether tears or trembling would be more appropriate.

She knew that Fenris would forgive her if she was not explicit. Fenris often had difficulty fully understanding some of his own emotions.

"I don't know what disturbs me more – having to…go through what that poor woman went through, or to realize that Sebastian was not what he seemed." Esperanza sat on the rough chair in the Viscountess's royal armory, her elbows resting on her knees. She had shed all of her armor but her boots. "I feel –"

"Violated." Fenris knelt down on the floor next to her, ducking his head so that he could catch her gaze. There was great intensity in his own, even with the calm in his voice. "Know that I will find a way to break the barriers of our world and the next to make Anders pay for what he's done to you."

Esperanza hugged herself. She smelled of sweat and Sebastian's blood, and her stomach rumbled every few moments in a reminder that it had gone unfilled for far too long. Yet, the small chamber that held hers and Fenris's armor felt far more comforting than the private or formal dining room. The bare stone walls, so close to one another and laden with wooden shelves, offered her more comfort than grand, wide-open chambers.

Violated. She did feel violated. Sebastian had violated her trust, and Anders had violated her mind.

Fenris's long fingers began to unlace her plated boots. "Tell me what I can do for you. I will do it," he said in a voice no louder than a whisper.

She wanted him to hold her. She wanted nothing more than to hide in her bed, with the drapes drawn tightly shut, under the warm blankets, with Fenris's strong arms around her. She wanted the rest of the day to slip away as her mind focused and rested and gathered strength to make sense of what had occurred.

No. There would be no time to heal or rest. Kirkwall needed her Viscountess. Esperanza doubted that she would have time for a morning meal, let alone a long nap to attempt to make up for her lack of sleep.

And yet, with exhaustion came the icy fingers of self-doubt. For a moment, her thoughts shifted, taking her into memory. She could smell burning flesh, burning wood, and another horrible acrid smell that she could not identify. She stood behind Anders, her dagger in her hand.

"Fenris," Esperanza said softly. "I think I made a mistake."

"You've made no mistakes that I know of." Fenris looked up at her face as he tugged at her right boot, sliding it free of her foot. "Not recently."

She saw herself in the barn behind her childhood home, sitting on a barrel. Carver was rushing around her, one of his tin soldiers in his hands. They had been asked to leave the house for an hour, and would be called back inside to eat some of Mother's delicious sticky buns.

Father and Bethany were at their lessons.

If anyone asked why the Hawke's home was shut, the curtains drawn, the children knew their lines. They knew the lie well, and the great consequences of telling the truth. So, they told they lie over and over.

Bethany had difficulty reading, of course. Yes, knowing how to read wasn't necessary for a farmer, but it was important to Malcolm. He had great shame from the fact that all of his children could read and do arithmetic, all of them but sweet Bethany, who tried so hard and was ashamed of failure.

People in Lothering would give Bethany a toffee and a sad smile.

And yet Esperanza sat there on her barrel, staring at the front door to the tiny house, the scent of cinnamon and fresh butter wafting to her small freckled nose, and she felt seeped in jealousy. She was a young girl who liked swords, but many girls her age dreamed of joining the army or, less probably, the Grey Wardens. There was nothing remarkable about her. She couldn't heal a cut, or set this barrel on fire, or move one of Carver's tin soldiers across the room like Bethany could.

Father said that mages could be dangerous if untrained, but so could any man or woman in Ferelden. Ignorance, he had said, could lead to the unfortunate death of any person.

Ignorance. Esperanza turned the word over in her head as she looked down at her husband. Fenris had been the victim of ignorance. He knew its sting all too well.

Yet…

She had to speak to Aveline. Aveline would understand.

Rising slowly from her chair, she slid one of her stockinged feet from Fenris's gentle grasp. "I…I have to go see someone. I don't want to explain myself now. Do me a favor – please, love – look in on Isabela and let me know how she's feeling. Then see that the morning petitions are cancelled."

"Of course." An expression of hurt crossed Fenris's face, but his voice did not betray that feeling. She so rarely kept anything from him, and the knowledge of what she was asking of him made her wince outwardly. "Come back soon. You need your rest." His fingers lightly brushed hers as he stood, staring down at her with his inquisitiveness plain upon his face.

~*~

"Ugh, the place is a mess." Aveline walked over to the carved bench that sat near the fire, looking down at the mabari puppy that lay there, happily gnawing on what appeared to be a bone from a large animal. "Bruiser, you heard me: get down, and take that thing with you."

With a whine, Bruiser vacated the seat, taking the bone with him as he trotted out of the room.

Esperanza looked around the small yet comfortable home. Every inch of the floor and ceiling had been put to use, either with furniture, rag rugs, weapons hung on pegs, or decorative wall hangings. Two armor stands had been stuffed into a corner; one was empty, while the other held Aveline's dress armor.

"I'm sorry I woke you." Esperanza sincerely meant it as she looked at Aveline, at the shabby dressing gown and the loose blue linen shift that her friend wore beneath.

"I wasn't sleeping, I assure you. I think I counted every beam in the ceiling ten times." Aveline sat on the bench, gesturing for Esperanza to do the same. "I don't think I need to tell you who I was thinking about."

"Sebastian." With a sigh, Esperanza sat next to Aveline. With the toe of one of her boots, she nudged aside a small basket filled with red wool, the largest ball of which was impaled by a set of knitting needles. "I was thinking more of Anders than him, oddly enough."

Aveline tilted her head. "Now that the new Grand Cleric is here, we'll no longer be shooting in the dark. She will know a way of stopping Anders." Her usual authoritative tones faded into something gentler, tinged lightly with concern. "This is personal for all of us, most of all you. You need to step aside, Hawke. This is out of your league. Really out of your league. Let her put Anders to rest or purge him or whatever it is that Grand Clerics do."

"This is my city." Esperanza did not blink as she stared back at Aveline.

"No one questions that," replied Aveline. "Least of all me. But even the legendary Esperanza Hawke gets faced with obstacles she can't topple."

Sighing, Esperanza stared into the dying embers in the hearth before them. Impatience touched her mind, mixing with the exhaustion that already settled there and left the entirety of her thoughts shrouded in fog. "I think I made a mistake," she at last admitted. The words seemed harder to say in front of Aveline than they did before Fenris.

"Yes, you did," Aveline said. "You should not have placed yourself in danger last night. We knew we couldn't talk you out of it, so we didn't bother. We aren't running around the Wounded Coast searching for bandits anymore. You're the Viscountess."

Esperanza made an impatient wave of a hand. "That's not what I'm talking about." The moment felt simply hopeless. All she wanted was for Aveline to simply sense what she couldn't manage to say for herself. Resting her chin in her hand, she tilted up her head to look at Aveline. "I should not have executed Anders."

"What?" Aveline raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Why not?"

"Look what's happened." Esperanza waved her free hand at the dying fire. "I know that mages become dangerous animals when cornered. I should have assumed that someone like Anders, someone with this powerful connection to the Fade, would be just as dangerous dead as alive." Guilt rested in her stomach and began to smolder, acting as the breakfast that she had not eaten. "No matter what sort of monster Sebastian turned out to be, his death is my fault. His blood is on my hands."

Dangerous animals.

Those sounded like Fenris's words, not her own.

Humans, elves, dwarves, and kossith might act like animals, but they never could be an animal. There was always a distinction.

Heat crept into Esperanza's cheeks, but not from the fire before them. What had she allowed herself to become?

"Stop this. Immediately." Aveline's voice hardened as she sat up straight. "Had I known of Sebastian's crimes, I would have found some way to see that he paid for them. I don't care how long we've all known one another or what good he's done for all of us."

"This isn't about Sebastian!" Esperanza's temper simply exploded, its power rising through her mental and physical exhaustion.

"No, it's not. I'll tell you what this is." Aveline could have been sitting at her desk in the Viscountess's Keep, clad in full armor, for the way that she sat and spoke. "This is guilt. You feel guilty for something that you shouldn't." Her voice softened, even faltered, as her expression lost its hardness. "Whether you realize it or not, you and I have the same job. We both uphold the law. It's not pretty or fair, but the law isn't either of those. You and I maintain balance. It's what we do. When the balance gets tipped, we fix it. All you did is fix the balance."

"It's not that simple," said Esperanza with a shake of her head. "You know that. No matter how much you don't want to admit it, criminals are people."

"There's where you have me wrong, Hawke." Aveline's voice no longer sounded so compassionate. In fact, she seemed tired all of the sudden. "We were criminals once. I know what it's like to be desperate and driven to the wrong side of the law. We made the choice to be there. Anders made his choice. You made yours. Anders even agreed with it."

Esperanza covered her face with her hands. She was supposed to be the one that had all of the answers. Why, then, did none of them seem to waft within her grasp? "Then why is he doing this to us?"

"Only he knows that. I doubt he's telling." Aveline looked directly at Esperanza as she spoke. "In the time I've known you, I learned that I can't make you do something that you don't want to do. I'm not going to try. I'm going to ask – for your sanity, for your safety, for the sake of your marriage – leave this alone. Don't go back in the Chantry without someone there that knows what they're doing."

The words disarmed Esperanza, and at the same time, left her feeling even more miserable than before. Even though the hard lump in her throat simply ached with uncertainty and frustration melting into one giant ball of pure misery, she refused to cry in front of Aveline.

Aveline was right. She couldn't fight something that she couldn't see and win.

"Now, I'm hungry." Aveline sighed heavily through her nose as she spoke. "You put some wood on the fire. I'll make us both some eggs on toast. Do you still take your tea black?"

Esperanza had a feeling that she didn't have a choice in the matter. Whether or not she wanted to crawl straight into bed and go to sleep, she was staying for breakfast.

~*~

"Someone needs a good, stiff drink and twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep." Isabela lay on one of the largest, most comfortable beds in the Viscountess's Keep, quite matter-of-factly letting the bedclothes rest around her waist. The only thing that she wore was a large bandage that wrapped around her head and her right eye. "That someone would be me. You don't have a single mage in the city that can heal this thing? No one at all? That apothecary's potions don't work fast enough."

Esperanza had learned years ago that sudden, unexplained nudity was a common fact when spending time with Isabela, so she hardly took notice of the sight of the Rivaini woman's bare breasts. "I'm glad that you're alright, Isabela. I was worried about you."

"Don't worry about me, kitten. I've survived worse." Isabela gave Esperanza a brief, fleeting smile. "It's Varric you should be worried about. Have you seen him since this morning?"

"No. Why, what's wrong?" Esperanza frowned, leaning slightly forward in the chair that she occupied.

"He came in to see me around lunchtime." Isabela exhaled slowly and heavily as she settled back on the pillow that lay beneath her head and shoulders both. "You know me. I'm the last person to begrudge someone that wants to be drunk by midday. But Varric was soused in a way I've never seen him. He could hardly walk."

Something in Isabela's words struck Esperanza like a thunderbolt, and she found herself sitting up straighter than before. "That doesn't sound like Varric at all. I've seen him drunk, but never that drunk."

"We had probably the most bizarre conversation we've ever had, too." Isabela continued to stare at the elaborately embroidered canopy that hung above her bed. "In a long, long line of absolutely strange conversations, mind. He asked me if I'd ever discussed anything really personal with Anders. Wasn't sure what he really meant by that. At first, I thought he was trying to find out if Anders and I had slept together." She turned her head slowly, the gaze of her one uninjured eye falling on Esperanza's face again. "That wasn't what he meant at all. Varric said that he'd made a connection – but he never said what he made a connection with. He said something about the Wounded Coast. Here's what was really weird, and not like Varric at all: he said that thought he'd be dead by tonight, and for me to pray for him. Me? Pray? Varric knows me better than that."

Esperanza pushed aside the worry that had begun to grow within her tired mind. A hot bath, a five hour nap, and two good meals hadn't been enough to touch the iceberg of exhaustion and trepidation within her head. "What exactly did he say about the Wounded Coast?"

"Something about a conversation he and Anders had one evening on the Wounded Coast. Then, he left." Isabella shrugged her shoulders. "Look, I think I've had my fill of ghost hunting. If Anders is haunting the Chantry, it's horrid, but not my problem to mop up. My last bit of charity nearly got me killed."

Esperanza nodded her head, her mind still resting on the disturbing mental image of a drunken Varric – not just drunk, but staggering, slobbering, terrified drunk. "I understand. Stay at least until you're well?"

"I never said that I was going anywhere, kitten," replied Isabela with a small smile. "A palace like this surely has many things to keep me entertained while you're out endangering yourself."


End file.
